If you want a good case study of why patents can damage business, take a look at http://tinyurl.com/38c9o , in fact I think you could make a good argument against patents on software based on these types of applications.
Say you work at a small development house, but everybody thinks that a software patent is fine, in fact we want some! Then this could open their eyes, especially if they write jsp applications.
The fact is, allot of these types of patent applications (most of them?) get granted.
David